DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Don't blame me for the leaks, Hoffman looking for RTJ magic, Schott's great-then-not-great day | Daily 4-6-2025

It was going really good for one Pennsylvania sprint car driver until it went really bad, regional guys rule at Talladega, and we'll talk sprint car silly season news and late model crew guy swaps. Let's go!

It's Sunday, April 6th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.

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So despite there being some national touring guys in the pit area, the regional drivers really starred over the two Hunt the Front Super Dirt Series nights at the Talladega Short Track. Friday night, polesitter Zack Mitchell led 38 of 40 laps from the pole, but got nipped late by third starting Dale McDowell. The $8000 win for McDowell was his first win of the season, and first since a July Southern Nationals win in 2024. He actually started the season during speedweeks helping out the Riggs Motorsports team in a bit of driver coaching role. McDowell also ended up driving an 81 car for the team at Volusia and All-Tech, but he really struggled. No features made in four attempts. Since jumping from the Riggs Longhorn though back into the Shane McDowell Racing Team Zero, he's been much better. Fourth against the Outlaws at Smoky Mountain, the Friday win with Hunt the Front, and then a sixth in the Saturday show. Not bad for a driver that's going to be 59 years old next month. The Saturday $12k to win finale was dominated by Sam Seawright, who led all 50 circuits from the pole. It was win number four of the year for Seawright, who also won the Ice Bowl at Talladega back in January. Of the national teams, the two highest finishing drivers were Ryan Gustin and Garrett Alberson, who both grabbed third place finishes. I thought we'd see more from Brandon Overton, but they had mechanical issues Friday, and faded to ninth on Saturday after starting on the second row. Leaving the weekend with now almost a month off until the next series race, Zack Mitchell has taken over the championship lead. He was 27th on Saturday, but HTF full timers drop their worst finish, so he actually picked up the lead despite the woes. It's super tight though through the first four races, with the top five separated by 12 points, and the top ten split by just 46 markers. Lavonia and Cherokee are up next that first weekend in May.

The only weekend 410 sprint car action that got completed was the Saturday weekly show at Lincoln Speedway in Pennsylvania. Anthony Macri started ninth, but took the lead for good inside ten to go when leader Dallas Schott went for a big ride down the backstretch. Schott had just taken the lead from Macri in lap traffic with a slider, but he got up into the fluff out of two and got sideways. Macri tried to miss him to the inside, but Schott caught Macri's right rear with his left front and went for a big tumble. He was okay afterwards, and Macri was able to continue. It was all the 39M from there, with Macri topping JJ Loss and Kyle Moody at the checkered. It as a shame for Schott, as it would have been a career day for him, even if he'd hung on to a podium. The Friday night show at Williams Grove was halted mid-feature because of rain. Matt Campbell was leading Macri in that one at the time of delay. They will run the rest of the show this coming Friday night in addition to their regular program.

Elsewhere, David Gasper was a USAC CRA winner at Perris, Shane Golobic won the midget show at Placerville, and Jadan Bowling and Ryan Turner split USCS wins at Carolina and Cherokee. NASCAR Cup Series driver and World of Outlaws team owner Ricky Stenhouse Jr. finished second in that Friday show at Carolina in a rare sprint car appearance before he went to Darlington for the weekend.

A couple of news items to hit on today as well. Just a week out from the start of the All Star Circuit of Champions return season, the Demyan Rudzik 49X team announced a driver change on Saturday. Previously this team was going full time All Star racing with Cale Thomas back in the car after he'd been in the Jay Kiser ride in 2024. Instead though, the 49X will be driven by Trey Jacobs this season. I've seen a bunch of people wondering what's up, and where Cale Thomas is going, and this is sort of the announcement after the announcement that this time came before the announcement. Jacobs revealed as Thomas' replacement before Thomas' new deal is actually public. This is the type of stuff that just kills me about the sport of dirt racing. Folks get mad when people like me and those on social media break these stories in advance of announcements being made. But too many people end up knowing what's going on, releases take too long to come out, and things start to leak. There comes a point where I can't really avoid talking about this, especially in a case just like this one. I could dance around Cale Thomas replacing a very recently retired sprint car driver, or I could just come out and say the plan is for Cale Thomas to replace Jacob Allen in the Shark Racing 1A; which I've known for nearly a week at this point. Teams and drivers and the quote unquote PR people want to control the narrative, but once they start talking to everyone behind the scenes, it's no longer their narrative to control. It doesn't take long for word to start getting around. And also in this specific case, the 49X team is under no obligation to play nice with Shark or Thomas, and they race in a week. They want to find their replacement, get word out, and move on. It's something I will never really understand.

And finally, Nick Hoffman and the Tye Twarog team have added some crew help in recent days. For speedweeks, Ricky Thornton Jr. had brought Nathan Sletto in to crew chief the 20RT squad, and things had gone well. Several wins and the big gator at Volusia. But at some point, Sletto decided this wasn't the gig for him, and he returned home to race modifieds again. We documented this on a previous daily show because it's been wild how many different crew guys and crew chiefs RTJ has had just in the last 12 months. Back on Thursday though, Sletto shared to Facebook that he'd been offered four jobs since leaving the 20RT and decided to take this one with Hoffman out full time with the World of Outlaws late models. An interesting turn of events, and maybe some drivers and teams hoping Sletto can bring some of that RTJ magic to their squads. It also goes to show how in-demand crew guys are for these traveling late model teams. Hoffman currently sits third in the Outlaw standings after eight races and trying to keep pace with leader Bobby Pierce. The Outlaws are on track this coming week at Farmer City for the Illini 100.

That's the daily show for this Sunday. Hope you guys have a great rest of your day out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow!